Spotlight Swings To Jury

July 24, 1986|By Brian Schmitz of The Sentinel Staff

NEW YORK — Attorneys for the United States Football League and the National Football League gave their closing arguments Wednesday, each presenting differing interpretations of free enterprise to a jury that begins deliberations today in an antitrust case that could change the face of the pro game.

USFL attorney Harvey Myerson asked the jury for the full $560 million in damages, which are trebled in antitrust cases, because the USFL was hurt by the NFL's anticompetitive practices.

Myerson contended the NFL felt threatened by the 3-year-old USFL and conspired to destroy it by tying up the three major television networks, thus violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.

''The essence of competition in this country is at stake,'' said Myerson, who spent most of his summation near the rail of the jury box, often talking to jurors in a whisper.

''I believe in the United States of America. . . . But if you don't come up with a judgment in favor of the USFL, this league is dead. It will be a signal to every other league that tries to compete and that is not what this country is about.''

NFL attorney Frank Rothman, asking jurors to award ''zero dollars'' in damages, said the NFL should not be ''penalized for success, under antitrust laws.

''Secondly, there is no law, no obligation that states the NFL must help competitors. That is not the American system,'' said Rothman, maintaining the NFL's position that the USFL self-destructed financially and had no choice but to force a merger through litigation.

''The NFL built itself through 67 years of effort and work,'' he said. ''The USFL has not gone through the growing, but suddenly, it decides that it has a God-given right to the same position in life as the NFL.''

Judge Peter Leisure will spend most of today instructing the jury on antitrust guidelines as they apply in the case before they begin deliberations.

Jurors also will decide if they will meet any part of the weekend.

Neither Rothman nor Myerson would speculate on how long it may take the jury of five women and one man to reach a verdict.

Officials of both leagues said they were confident of victory, but all expressed concern of the perceptions jurors had of the case. ''Who knows what they're thinking?'' Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell said. ''All the USFL's evidence is circumstantial, but the jury may not see it that way.''

Myerson told jurors that what makes the USFL's case so strong is, ''We don't have to rely on circumstantial evidence.''

Myerson hammered away on his biggest pieces of documented evidence -- the Harvard Business School Study, commissioned by the NFL in 1984, and the Jack Donlan Memos that followed the seminar.

Rothman, who presented his summation before Myerson, reiterated earlier that the NFL never implemented such strategies and added: ''It is not in violation of antitrust laws to discuss business strategy.''

As he has maintained throughout the 2 1/2-month-old trial, Myerson said NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle ''pressured'' networks to not televise the USFL by threatening to end the league's relationship with them.

Myerson said former ABC Sports President Jim Spence recanted his earlier testimony that Rozelle was ''not enamored with'' ABC giving the USFL a spring contract. ''If that's not pressure,'' he said, ''I don't know what is.''

Myerson retold jurors of Howard Cosell's testimony, that Cosell said former ABC Sports head Roone Arledge ''was all over him'' for ''sustaining the USFL with a spring contract.''

Rothman said ABC turned down the USFL after its move to the fall because the league was no longer a viable commodity. ''The USFL has no single piece of evidence that we actually dissuaded the networks,'' Rothman said.

Myerson said it took the NFL ''only two days to attack,'' to follow the Harvard Business School Study suggestions, pointing to an inner-office memo from NFL Management Council head Jack Donlan to the NFL staff. Donlan said in it that he had to ''scare'' NFL owners about the threat the USFL presented.

The seminar also suggested the NFL drive up player salaries to weaken the USFL. Another memo from Donlan was entitled ''Spending The USFL Dollar.''

''The USFL made a Tupperware party sound like a terrorist conspiracy,'' Rothman said of the study, to which Myerson later asked: ''If it was so harmless, why didn't they parade somebody up here who was there to tell us so?''